The canal is 6.3 km in length and was built between 1881 and 1893. It saves the 400 km long journey around the Peloponnesus for smaller ships, but since it is only 21 m wide, it is too narrow for modern ocean freighters. The canal is nowadays mostly used by tourist ships; 11,000 ships per year travel through the waterway.

79 m Bungy jumping at the corinth canal

The first who considered to build a canal was Periander but asking the Oracle of Delphi said that he should not build the canal.

Demetrius Poliorcetes asked his engineers if a canal can be build but they predicted that the different sea levels of the Saronic and Corinthian Gulf would be catastrophical for islands in the region if the canal is build.

The first attempt to build a canal at the place was carried out in 67 AD by the Roman emperor Nero, who ordered 6000 slaves to dig with spades. More than 3 km (40 meter wide) were completed but in the following year Nero died after he was sentenced to death and his successor Galba abandoned the project, since it appeared too expensive to him.